's good, is relative
love.

Reply Obj. 1: Love is not divided into friendship and concupiscence,
but into love of friendship, and love of concupiscence. For a friend
is, properly speaking, one to whom we wish good: while we are said to
desire, what we wish for ourselves.

Hence the Reply to the Second Objection.

Reply Obj. 3: When friendship is based on usefulness or pleasure, a
man does indeed wish his friend some good: and in this respect the
character of friendship is preserved. But since he refers this good
further to his own pleasure or use, the result is that friendship of
the useful or pleasant, in so far as it is connected with love of
concupiscence, loses the character to true friendship.
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QUESTION 27

OF THE CAUSE OF LOVE
(In Four Articles)

We must now consider the cause of love: and under this head there are
four points of inquiry:

(1) Whether good is the only cause of love?

(2) Whether knowledge is a cause of love?

(3) Whether likeness is a cause of love?

(4) Whether any other passion of the soul is a cause of love?
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FIRST ARTICLE [I-II, Q. 27, Art. 1]

Whether Good Is the Only Cause of Love?

Objection 1: It would seem that good is not the only cause of love.
For good does not cause love, except because it is loved. But it
happens that evil also is loved, according to Ps. 10:6: "He that
loveth iniquity, hateth his own soul": else, every love would be
good. Therefore good is not the only cause of love.

Obj. 2: Further, the Philosopher says (Rhet. ii, 4) that "we love
those who acknowledge their evils." Therefore it seems that evil is
the cause of love.

Obj. 3: Further, Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv) that not "the good"
only but also "the beautiful is beloved by all."

_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Trin. viii, 3): "Assuredly the
good alone is beloved." Therefore good alone is the cause of love.

_I answer that,_ As stated above (Q. 26, A. 1), Love belongs to the
appetitive power which is a passive faculty. Wherefore its object
stands in relation to it as the cause of its movement or act.
Therefore the cause of love must needs be love's object. Now the
proper object of love is the good; because, as stated above (Q. 26,
AA. 1, 2), love implies a certain connaturalness or complacency of
the lover for the thing beloved, and to everything, that thing is a
good, which is akin and proportionate to it. It follows, therefore,
th